Social Networks

This morning, Michel Bauwens asked if any part of my proposals for personal clouds are actually working, or if they still are just proposals. The answer is: Yes, they still are “just proposals. Here is why, and why you should still care.

One year ago I launched a proposal, with related fundraiser, for an alternative to Facebook, Gmail and similar services really usable by normal people, the percloud. That fundraiser did not succeed, which is no problem at all for me, because I do have many other things to do. I am writing this post only because I believe that something like the percloud is still sorely needed, and the sooner anybody does it, the better. Seriously. Here’s why.

In December 2013 I came across something I still consider yet another proof of two things: first, much trust in the actual competence of many “digital savvy” Internet users is misplaced; second, many of the proposed alternatives to current social networks are trying to solve the wrong problem.

Fargo is (I’m really simplifying here!) Open Source software by Dave Winer that lets you build a blog out of files stored on your Dropbox online storage account. Ron Chester explains very well here why he is using the Fargo Web publishing system.

The percloud is my proposal for an easy to use personal cloud, that is for a feasible alternative for the masses to Facebook, Gmail, and all similar centralized Web services and their privacy and data ownership issues. Last week I put online a 10 slides summary of how the percloud should work. This post answers a specific question that I’ve been asked many times by readers of those slides

More than ten years ago I discovered John Naisbitt’s famous quote: “We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” This month I’ve discovered a wonderful piece by Neal Gabler that goes further: The Elusive Big Idea.